Ramler confirms he is among '5 to 9' candidates for job

Dec. 11, 2012

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Extra Points: SJU/CSB sports Dec. 10: The latest on the SJU football coach search and CSB and SJU basketball updates.

Kurt Ramler

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Kurt Ramler, a former Johnnies quarterback and assistant coach and the former head coach at Carleton, confirmed Tuesday he is among the five to nine candidates who will go through the preliminary interview process this week with members of the search committee charged with finding a new football coach at St. John’s.

Eden Prairie High School coach Mike Grant confirmed this past weekend that he is in that group as well. Current assistant coach Gary Fasching and former Augustana (S.D.) coach Mike Aldrich both said they had applied for the job, but were ‘not at liberty’ to say more.

The school is looking for a replacement for John Gagliardi, who announced his retirement last month after 60 seasons as the Johnnies head coach.

Search committee chair Joe Mucha said interviews with all of the candidates have been scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at an off-campus location.

“We’re all committed to working 24 hours a day if need be to get this all in,” said Mucha of himself and the other nine members of the search committee.

Once preliminary interviews are completed, Mucha said the committee will begin the task of choosing the finalists who will be brought to Collegeville for day-long, on-campus interviews.

“We’ll sit down after (the preliminary) interviews are over and we have all the data,” Mucha said. “We’d like to ideally choose the finalists by the end of the week and then begin the task of vetting and calling references.”

If all works out well in the preliminary interview process, Mucha said it’s possible those finalist interviews could be held next week. If not, it’s likely they would have to wait until the first week in January as arranging interviews in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day could prove difficult.

But both Mucha and athletic director Tom Stock said that’s a decision the full committee will have to make.

“As much as we want to hurry, we still have to make sure we do our homework,” Mucha said. “We’re kind of playing one-strike baseball here. We want to make sure we have our I’s dotted and our T’s crossed.”